Swiss parliament calls for a more flexible army
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Swiss parliament calls for a more flexible army
The Swiss army must be more flexible to meet the needs of its personnel according to the Swiss Senate. On Wednesday, the Senate largely approved the amendments to the Armed Forces Act requested by the federal government. It did, however, make a few changes.
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The draft introduces greater flexibility for recruit schools and refresher courses, said Defence Minister Martin Pfister. It also empowers the government to call up a maximum of 18 armed forces personnel for deployments lasting more than three weeks, without requiring the approval of parliament. This is compared with the current limit of 10 for the same period.
The Senate decided to remove the limit on the number of military personnel. The number of troops is to be determined according to the requirements of the operation. In addition, a transitional provision should allow the army to exceed its actual strength for a maximum of five years.
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The federal government has also defined compensatory business as industrial collaboration with research establishments and companies in the technical field of security and defence in Switzerland. Left-wing and some centre party parliamentarians succeeded in adding establishments and companies from other fields, such as the machine industry, watchmaking, chemicals or the vehicle and wagon construction sector.
Other changes made by the government concern cyber threats, digitalisation, the development of military peace promotion, training and continued education in military health system and research and development in the field of armed forces equipment. The Senate made a number of other changes.
The dossier now goes to the House of Representatives.
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Translated from German by DeepL/jdp
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